Resources to help your devotional life the new year!

Each year for a while now I have posted something around new year with some ideas to help us grow in Christ in the new year. Some will just take 5 minutes to get you started in reading the Bible, some will be things that help you take a step up from where you already are.

As in previous years, the resources suggested focus mostly either on personal Bible reading, or on personal prayer. But let me say once again – just as important are the ‘one another’ ways we help each other grow in Christ – like regular church gathering, and Growth Groups (what we call our midweek groups).

Most of the resources below have been listen in previous years, but I have added a couple. Have a look and see if one or two catch your eye, to get you going, to add a fresh element to your spiritual life, or to fill a gap.

May our gracious God, who is the source of all true spiritual growth, bless you greatly in 2026!
Chris

Bible reading

Ways to access the Bible:

• YouVersion – while I prefer paper Bibles, this is great for having numerous Bible translations on your phone for free, as well as the possibility of different reading plans and prayer helps. Excellent for having audio versions of the Bible at your fingertips.
• Bible Gateway Audio – another easy way to access a lot of audio Bibles that may be very helpful.
• Biblia – another online Bible with various versions, and not many ads. Nice to look at, closer to a paper Bible, and has easy reference to resources and helps.

Bible reading plans and aids:

• Bible Reading Chart – a simple colour coded chart. You can mark off chapters you have read, and thereby keep track of what you have read over time, making sure to take in the ‘whole council of God’. The colours also allow you to keep track of getting a good diet of different genres of Bible books. Useful whether you read half a chapter a day or many chapters a day.
• M’Cheyne Yearly Bible Reading Plan – a time tested way to read the whole Bible in a year, covering around 4 chapters per day, from different parts and genres of the Bible. This chart version from TGC is easy to print, read, and mark off, to keep track of what you have covered (print it and keep it with your Bible). If you’d rather do it on your phone, an app for keeping track of your reading with this plan is here on Android. And a version that covers the Bible in 5-days-a-week (leaving a little wiggle room) is here.
• TGC Bible Reading and Devotional – following the M’Cheyne plan noted above, this plan provides these chapters along with a devotional by wise and learned scholar Don Carson. Both the Bible text and the devotional are provided in both written and audio formats, all in one place each day. If you just want the devotional as a podcast (eg to use with the chart above) you can get it here (includes links to various platforms, eg Apple, Spotify).
• Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening – newly available as a podcast with updated English, this resource has been well tested by many Christians for reflecting on the truths of the Bible at each end of the day.
• 5x5x5 reading plan – about 5 minutes per day, 5 days a week, with 5 different ways to engage the Bible passage. This plan from the Navigators is especially good for people new to Bible reading, to get into the habit.
• Bible 52 – due out from Bible Society in 2023, this covers 52 chapters of the Bible across the year, ideal especially for doing as a family with kids, with activities and simple prayers provided (a sample page is downloadable from the linked page).
• Redeeming Time – this clever little app helps you to see what you part of the Bible you could read in the next few minutes, rather than frittering away time on social media scrolling etc. It also lets you see (and keep track of) how many days it would take you to read books of the bible if you had, for instance, just 5 minutes a day. It is surprising and encouraging how much you can cover with a spare few minutes!

Prayer

A number of the Bible reading helps above include helps for prayer, but here are some more that are focussed on prayer in particular:

• PrayerMate – prayer app for smartphones. Keep track of and plan for things to pray for, set reminders pray for things you need to pray for or have promised to pray for. You can also subscribe to prayer updates from many different organisations.
• Paul’s prayers collected – a complete list of the Apostle Paul’s prayers in the Bible, collected together, which you can use as a basis to pray from.
• Prayers from the Book of Common Prayer – a collection of collects (prayers for use at different times of the year, connected with different parts of the Bible’s story), and prayers for various occasions – collected from the traditional Anglican prayer book, time tested over a number of centuries.
• Prayerfulness – I don’t usually promote modern books here, but this one is unique – it is the distilled, Bible-saturated prayer experience of a wise and suffering-tested older saint, Peter Adam. But it also comes with a huge number of written prayers from Peter himself and others which are hugely valuable in learning how to pray in a more Christ-centred and biblically-informed way,

Other helps

• New City Catechism – free mobile app resource. Catechisms have been in use in the church since the very beginning – ways of summarising the key doctrinal truths and implications from the Bible and helping people (including families together) to take them in more deeply. A good contemporary (but deeply rooted) catechism has been made available. Could be good, for instance, to look at one topic with your family over dinner once per week. Also available as a free e-book through this link.
• TGC Bible Commentary – it is rare to get top class commentators who are up to date with the information now available to help us understand the Bible (and discerning enough to be wise with what to take and what to leave aside) unless you pay big dollars for commentaries. This free commentary is just that – not technical, but written by capable scholars, and covering every book of the Bible.